Hitherto passing wind has had negative connotations, or at least when in the presence of others, but today, if I could manage to do so there would be great joy in Devonshire Place. This is the location of the London Clinic where two days ago part of my colon was removed by the excellent Janindra Warusavitarne using laparoscopy or ‘keyhole’ surgery. The purpose of the operation was to free me from a two centimetre growth inside the colon that the equally excellent Dr Brian Saunders had spotted during a colonoscopy that he had performed four weeks earlier at the request of our also excellent GP, Dr Joanna Hayes. Biopsy on some samples removed during the colonoscopy had showed the lump to be a cancer so when Mr Warusavitarne asked “when can you come in” my reply was “how about tomorrow?”
So here we are, a week after meeting him, with the job done barring one fart and a few weeks of recuperation. After the wind has passed I will be deemed sufficiently restored inside to start eating food at which point the excellent nurses, Jose Lopez from Zaragossa or Elgin Beteya from Montenegro will be able to do without the various tubes supplying my person. The catheter that takes away the urine from you-know-where, another into a vein in the back of my hand that supplies morphine in 1 milligram shots on the press of a button and another in the hand that initially, until I was drinking enough, supplied a saline drip; it has latterly been used for occasional doses of other analgesics and also acts as a backup supply route should some emergency occur.
The head of pain management popped in to see how things were but it is difficult to know how to report pain. How much should one bear anyway? Also, if there should be a negative relationship between taking pain killers and bowel function I would be in something of a quandary. The physiotherapist is now coming in to show me some exercises. You could tell he was the physio the moment he walked in and I was surprised how feeble I was when he got me up. The hospital management called to introduce themselves with no obvious purpose except that they coincided with the surgeon’s visit. At the lower end of the medical pecking order is one of the few English people on the staff, a night shift visitor, she comes in with exactly the same questions every time, starting with “are you feeling any pain” and performs a routine of measurements and recordings which presumably go into the computer and cause alarm bells if they are out of whack. One measurement taken from a gadget on my finger showed on her screen to be a bit on the low side so she got me to take some deeper breaths – which fixed it. She wouldn’t want to submit bad data would she? And it was a good reminder to keep breathing!
This removal of the service tubes will then allow me to be more mobile, in order of importance, to exercise the body, to visit the small room and to clean my teeth. The last time I had a meal, aside from the liquids, was Monday supper in St Luke’s Street. We are now Thursday so a little food should go down well sometime today. And it will bring much happiness to Jose who, while carrying out and recording the various measurements, has asked at every visit about whether there has been any movement!
The big risk is that the join of the colon does not heal well and it leaks. This would require rapid surgery to fix and thus set me back in a big way. The probability of this event is about 1% and this is reduced further, says Mr Warusavitarne by my state of fitness which he reckons is better than his. So, once I am eating and there is evidence of a couple of days of proper bowel function (say no more), I will then be allowed to return to St Luke’s Street where, I can assure you, the service is even better. No man could wish for greater care, not just aftercare but also the prodding that got me to Dr Hayes in the first place. Men commonly call this nagging until they discover that they have just dodged a potentially terminal disease.
The next major event will be the results of the biopsy that is meanwhile being carried out on the section of colon that was removed. If there is evidence of cancer cells on the outer wall or surrounding tissue then I will be in for other therapy. This is not expected since the cancer was caught at an early stage but it will nevertheless be good to get the all clear. In the short term a certain release of air is the priority.